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HAUD IMMEMOR 



A FEW 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 



OF 



Mr. THACKERAY 



IN PHILADELPHIA. 



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II 




(Privately Printed.) 
WILLIAM P. KILDARE, 422 WALNUT STREET. 

1864. 






Kntered. according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

WILLIAM P. KILDABE, 

in tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvaniii. 



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Haud Immemor. 



Mr. Thackeray, (who that has heard him, with fweetneis of voice 
unequalled, fpeak of Mr. Jofeph Addifon, and Mr. Congreve, and Mr. 
Fielding, and Mr. Atterbury ; — who that has read Henry Elmond, 
or the Virginians, will find fault with me for fo defcribing him ?) 
came to Philadelphia, on his firft vifit to America, in the month of 
January, 1853. My impreffion is that he brought very few letters 
of perfonal introduftion, and was rather carelefs of what may be called 
" focial fuccefs," though anxious about the work he had in hand — his 
courfe of leftures on the Englifti Humourifts — and, as he ufed to iay, 
"the dollars he wifhed to make, not for himfelf, but for thofe at 
home." With, or without letters, he foon made friends, on the hearts 
of whom the news of his death has llruck a Iharp pang. As one ot 
them, I venture to record a {^w memories of him who is gone. 

The ledures were very fuccefsful here. There are two clafles 
of people in everv American microcofm — thofe who run after celeb- 
rities, and thofe, refolute not to be pleafed, who run, as it were, 
againll them. All were won or conquered by his fimple naturalneis ; 
and, as I have faid, the ledures were a great fuccels. 

My perfonal relations to him happened to become very intimate. 
He feemed to take a tancv to me and mine ; and 1 certainly loved 



him. He ufed to come to my houfe, not the abode of weahh or 
kixury, almoil every day, and often more than once a day. He 
talked with my little children, and told them odd fairy tales ; and 
I now fee him (this was on his fecond vifit) one day in Walnut Street, 
walking flowly along with my little girl by the hand ; the tall, grey- 
headed, fpedlacled man, with an effort accommodating himfelf to the 
toddling child by his fide ; and then he would bring her home ; and 
one day, when we were to have a great dinner given to him at the 
Club, and my wife was ill, and my houfehold difarranged, and 
the bell rang, and I faid to him : " I mull go and carve the bgiled 
mutton for the children, and take for granted you do not care to 
come ;" and he got up, and, with a cheery voice, faid : " I love 
boiled mutton, and children too, and I will dine with them," and 
we did ; and he was happy, and the children were happy, and our 
appetite for the club dinner was damaged. Such was Thackeray in 
my home. 

I met him once at the houfe of a friend, and there happened 
to be an odd collocation at the table. There was a gueft, a man of 
brilliant talent, of mature age, and high education, meafured at leall 
by our American ilandard, who was dillinguifhed by two peculiarities 
— his remarkable phyfical refemblance to Thackeray, and the faft that, 
although upwards of fifty years of age, born and bred in Kentucky, 
he had never crofled the Alleghanies before, and never, until that 
very day, feen a fhip or any fquare-rigged veffel. They — the bright 
backwoodfman, who had never looked upon the ocean, and the 
veteran Londoner, who had made an India voyage before the days 
of fleam, and had feen a fat man, in white clothes and a big flraw 
hat, at Saint Helena, called " Buonaparte" — were a charming contrail. 



5 

The year 1863 carried both to their graves — one in Kenfal Green 
and the other on the banks of the Ohio. 

It was a bright moonlight night on which we (Thackeray and I) 
walked home from that dinner; and I remember well the walk and 
the place, for I feem to localize all my afTociations with him, and I 
afked him, what perhaps he might have thought, the abfurd queilion : 
" What do you honeilly think ot my country ; or, rather, what has 
molt ftruck you in America ? Tell me candidly, for I fhall not be 
at all angry, or hurt if it be unfavourable, or too much elated, if it be 
not ?" And then his anfwer, as he Hopped, (we were walking along 
Penn Square), and turning round to me faid : "You know what a 
virtue-proud people we Englifh are ? We think we have got it all 
to ourlelves. Now, that which moll imprefles me here is, that I 
find homes as good as ours ; firefides like ours ; domeftic virtues as 
gentle and pure ; the Englilh language, though the accent be a little 
different, with its home-like melodies ; and the Common Prayer Book 
in your families. I am more ftruck by pleafant refemblances than 
by anything elfe." And fo I fincerely believe he was. 

There was a great deal of dining out while " the great fatirift," 
as we ufed to addrefs him, was here ; but although always genial, 
I do not think, according to my recollection, he was a brilliant 
converfationill. Thofe who expected much were often difappointed. 
It was in clofe, private intercourse, he was delightful. Once — it 
was in New York — he gave a dinner, at which I happened to be 
a gueft, to what are called " literary men :" — authors, and lawyers, 
and aftors (two very accomplifhed ones, and moil ellimable gentle- 
men. Hill living), and editors, and magazine men. There he made 
what feemed to be an effort. He talked for the table. He fang 



6 

Tome odd pofl-prandial fongs ; one, in a ilrange fort of " recitative," 
about Doftor Martin Luther. But, as I have faid, it was an effort, 
and I liked him better at home and alone. It was on this occafion, 
or, rather, on our return journey to Philadelphia, that, on board the 
fteamboat, (^here again am I localizing, ) he fpoke to me of domellic 
forrows and anxieties too facred to be recorded here. He referred 
to a friend whofe wife had been deranged for many years, hopeleffly 
fo ; and never fhall I forget the look, and manner, and voice 
with which he faid to me, " It is an awful thing for her to con- 
tinue fo to live. It is an awful thing for her fo to die. But h^is it 
never occurred to vou, how awful a thing the recovery of loll reafon 
muft be, without the confcioufnefs of the lapfe of time ? She finds the 
lover of her youth a grey-haired old man, and her infants young men 
and women. Is it not fad to think of this ?" And yet it was this man 
whom vulgar-minded people called heartlefs ! As he thus talked to 
me, I thought of lines of tendernefs, often quoted, which no one but he 
could have written : 

" Ah me ! how quick the days are flitting ; 

I mind me of a time that's gone. 
When here I'd fit, as now I'm fitting. 

In this fame place, but not alone. 
A fair, young form was nellled near me ; 

A dear, dear face looked fondly up. 
And fweetly fpoke and fmiled to cheer me, — 

There's no one now to fhare mv cup !" 

It is no part of this little memorial to refer to what mav be called 
his public relations to Philadelphia, and his succeis as a ledhirer. 1 
merely record mv recoUeftion of the peculiar voice and cadence, the 
exquifite manner of reading poetry, the elocution, matchleis in its 



fimplicity, his tranquil attitude — the only movement of his hands 
being when he wiped his glafles as he began and turned over the 
leaves of his manufcript — his gentle intonations. There was fweet 
mufic in his way of repeating the moft hackneyed lines, which 
frefhened them anew. I feem ftill to hear him fay : 

" And nightly to the liilening earth 
Repeats the ftory of her birth." 

Or, in his lecture on Pope : 

" Lo ! thy dread empire. Chaos ! is reftored ; 
Light dies before thy uncreating word. 
Thy hand, great Anarch ! lets the curtain fall. 
And univerfal darknefs buries all !" 

But to refume my perfonal recolleftions. He was too fincere a 
man to talk for effeft, or to pay common compliments ; and on his 
firft vifit to America, he feemed fo happy, and fo much pleafed with 
all he met, that I fancied he might be tempted to come and, for a time, 
live amongft us. The Britilh confulate in this city became vacant, 
the incumbent, Mr. William Peter, dying fuddenly, and it feems from 
the following note, vyritten at Wafhington, that I had urged him 
to take the place, if he could get it. I give the note exaftly as it was 
written, venturing even to retain the names of thofe whom he kindly 
remembered, and Philadelphians of the old fchool will fmile at the 
mif-fpelling of the name of the founder of the Wiftar parties of our 
ancient days. The 'Wharton' and 'Lewis' of the note are the 
late Thomas J. Wharton, and Mr. William D. Lewis, who, I hope. 
Hill cherifhes kind recolleftions of happy and peaceful days. 



Mr. Andcrfori's Mufic Store, Pcnn''a Avenue, 
Friday. 



My Dear Reed 



(I withdraw the Mr. as wafleful and ridiculous excefs) and thank 
you for the famous autograph, and the kind letter enclofing it, and 
the good wifhes you form for me. There are half a dozen houfes I 
already know in Philadelphia where I could find very pleafant friends 
and company ; and that good, old library would give me plenty of 
acquaintances more. But, home and my parents there, and fome' few 
friends I have made in the lall 25 years, and a tolerably fair profpeft 
of an honell livelihood on the familiar London flag ftones, and the 
library at the Athenaeum, and the ride in the Park, and the pleafant 
fociety afterwards ; and a trip to Paris now and again, and to Switzer- 
land and Italy in the fummer, — ^thefe are little temptations which make 
me not difcontented with my lot, about which I grumble only for paf- 
time, and because it is an Englifhman's privilege. Own now that all 
thefe recreations here enumerated have a pleafant found. I hope I fhall 
live to enjoy them yet a little while, before I go to " Nox et domus 
exilis Plutonia," whither poor, kind, old Peter has vaniflied. So that 
Saturday I was to have dined with, him, and Mrs. Peter wrote, faying, 
he was ill with influenza, he was in bed with his lall illhefs, and there 
were to be no more Whifler parties for him. Will Whifter himfelf, 
hofpitable, pig-tailed fhade, welcome him to Hades? And will they fit 
down — no, iland up — to a ghollly fupper, devouring the tfOtijMoq (J'u/r^5 
of oyflers and all forts of birds ? I never feel pity for a man dying, 
only for furvivors, if there be fuch, paflionately deploring him. You 
fee the pleafures the underfigned propoles to himfelf here in future 



years — a fight of the Alps, a holiday on the Rhine, a ride in the Park, 
a colloquy with pleafant friends of an evening. If it is death to part 
with thefe delights (and pleafures they are and no mifiake), fure the 
mind can conceive others afterwards ; and I know one fmall philofopher 
who is quite ready to give up thefe pleafures ; quite content (after a 
pang or two of feparation from dear friends here), to put his hand 
into that of the Summoning Angel and say, ' Lead on, O meffenger 
of God our Father, to the next place whither the Divine Goodnefs 
calls us!' We mufl; be blindfolded before we can pafs, I know; but 
I have no fear about what is to come, any more than my children 
need fear that the love of their father fhould fail them. I thought 
myfelf a dead m.an once, and protefl the notion gave me no difquiet 
about myfelf— at leafl;, the philofophy is more comfortable than that 
which is tinftured with brimftone. 

The Baltimoreans flock to the ftale old leftures as numeroufly as 
you of Philadelphia. Here, the audiences are more polite than numer- 
ous ; but the people who do come are very well pleafed with their 
entertainment. I have had many dinners — Mr. Everett, Mr. Fifh ; 
our Minifter, ever fo often, the moll hofpitable of envoys. I have 
feen no one at all in Baltimore, for it is impoffible to do the two 
towns together ; and from this I go to Richmond and Charleilon — 
not to New Orleans, which is too far. And I hope you will make 
out your vifit to Wafhington, and that we fhall make out a meeting 
more fatisfactory than that dinner at New York, which did not come 
off". The combination failed which I wanted to bring about. Have 
you heard Mifs Furnefs of Philadelphia fing ? She is the very beil 
ballad finger I ever heard. And will you pleafe remember me to 
Mrs. Reed, and your brother, and Wharton, fnd Lewis, and his 



ro 



pretty young daughter ; and believe me, always faithfully yours, 
dear Reed, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

The 'famous autograph' was, if my memory does not miflcad 
me, a letter of Wafhington, for which he had exprefled a wilh, and 
which I gladly gave him ; and the plan of coming to America, as 
will be feen, though at firll rejefted, feems to have taken root in his 
mind. 

Thackeray left us in the winter of 1853, and in the fummer 
of the year was on the Continent with his daughters. In the laft 
chapter of 'The Newcomes,' publifhed in 1855, he fays: "Two 
years ago, walking with my children in fome pleafant fields near to 
Berne, in Switzerland, I llrayed from them into a little wood ; and 
coming out of it, prelently told them how the llory had been revealed 
to me fomehow, which, for three-and-twenty months, the reader has 
been pleafed to follow." It was on this Swifs tour that he wrote me 
the following charafterillic letter, filled with kindly recolleftions of 
convivial hours in Philadelphia, of headaches which he had contributed 
to adminiller, and of friends whofe fociety he cherifhed. On the 
back of this note is a pen and ink caricature, of which he was not 
confcious when he began to write. It is what he alludes to as "the 
rubbifhing pifture which he didn't fee." The Iketch is very fpirited, 
and, as a friend, to whom I have fhown it, reminds me, evidently is 
the original of one of the illullrations of his grotefque fairy tale of 
" The Rofe and the Ring," written, fo he told a member of my 
family years afterwards, while he was watching and nurfmg his chil- 
dren, who were ill during this vacation ramble. 



Neufchatel, Switzerland, July 21, 1853 
My Dear Reed: 

Though I am rather flow in paying the tailor, I always pay him ; 
and as with tailors, fo with men ; I pay my debts to my friends, only 
at rather a long day. Thank you for writing to me fo kindly, you 
who have fo much to do. I have only begun to work ten days fince, 
and now, in confequence, have a little leifure. Before, fince my 
return from the Weil, it was flying from London to Paris, and vice 
verfa — dinners right and left — parties every night. If I had been in 
Philadelphia, I could fcarcely have been more fealled. Oh, you 
unhappy Reed ! I fee you, (after that little fupper with McMichael) 
on Sunday, at your own table, when we had that good Sherry-Madeira, 
turning afide from the wine cup with your pale face ! That cup has 
gone down this well fo often, that I wonder the cup ifn't broken, 
and the well as well as it is. 

Three weeks of London were more than enough for me, and I 
feel as if I had had enough of it and pleafure. Then I remained a 
month with my parents ; then I brought my girls on a little pleafuring 
tour. We fpent ten days at Baden, when I fet intrepidly to work 
again ; and have been five days in Switzerland now ; not bent on 
going up mountains, but on taking things eafily. How beautiful it 
is ! How pleafant ! How great and affable, too, the landfcape is ! 
It's delightful to be in the midfl of fuch fcenes — the ideas get generous 
reflections from them. I don't mean to fay my thoughts grow moun- 
tainous and enormous like the Alpine chain yonder — but, in line, it is 
good to be in the prefence of this noble nature. It is keeping good 
company ; keeping away mean thoughts. I fee in the papers now 



I 2 

and again accounts of fine parties in London. Bon Dieu ! Is it pofTible 
any one ever wanted to go to fine London parties, and are there now 
people fweating in May-fair routs ? The European Continent Iwarms 
with your people. They are not all as polifhed as Cheilerfield. 
I wifh fome of them fpoke French a little better. I faw five of them 
at fupper, at Bafle, the other night, with their knives down their 
throats. It was awful. My daughter faw it, and I was obliged to fay : 
" My dear, your great-great grandmother, one of the finefl. ladies of 
the old fchool I ever faw, always applied cold ileel to her vidluals. 
It's no crime to eat with a knife," which is all very well : but Lwifh 
five of 'em at a time wouldn't. 

Will you pleafe beg McMichael, when Mrs. Glyn, the Englilh 
tragic aftrefs, comes to read Shakefpeare in your city, to call on her — 
do the adl of kindnefs to her, and help her with his valuable editorial 
aid ? I wifh we were going to have another night foon, and that I 
was going this very evening to fet you up with a headache againft 
to-morrow morning. By Jove, how kind you all were to me! How 
I like people, and want to fee 'em again ! You are more tender- 
hearted, romantic, fentimental, than we are. I keep on telling this 
to our fine people here, and have fo belaboured your — 

[Here the paper was turned, and the fketch revealed. At the 
top is written, " Pardon this rubbilhing picture ; but I didn't fee, 
and can't afford to write page 3 over again."] 

your country with praife in private that I fometimes think I go too 
far. I keep back fome of the truth ; but the great point to try and 
ding into the ears of the great, flupid, virtue-proud Englifh public is, 
that there are folks as good as they in America. That's where Mrs. 
Stowe's book has done harm, by inflaming us with an idea of our 



13 

own fuperior virtue in freeing our blacks, whereas you i^eep yours. 
Comparifons are always odorous, Mrs. Malaprop says, 

I am about a new ftory, but don't know as yet if it will be any 
good. It feems to me I am too old for ftory telling ; but I want 
money, and fhall get 20,000 dollars for this, of which (D. V.) I'll 
keep fifteen. I wifh this rubbifh [the fketch] were away ; I might 
put written rubbifh in its ftead. Not that I have anything to say, 
but that I always remember you and yours, and honeft Mac, and 
Wharton, and Lewis, and kind fellows who have been kind to me, 
and I hope will be kind to me again. Good bye, my dear Reed, 
and believe me, ever fincerely yours, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

The next year, 1854, was a year of forrow to me and mine. 
But for the fympathy which, in that overpowering grief, I had trom 
my friend, I Ihould not allude to it. My only furviving brother, Mr. 
Henry Reed, in company with his wife's fifter, vifited Europe, saw 
and were kindly treated by Mr. Thackeray ; and on their return 
voyage, on the 24th of September, perifhed in the fhipwreck ol the 
Arftic, Thackeray had known my brother in this country, and duly 
eftimated what I may be pardoned for defcribing as his gentle virtues, 
and refined and fcholar-like taftes. He meafured, too, the anguifh 
which, even at this lapfe of time, now nearly ten years, frefhens when 
I think of it, and then bowed a whole family to the earth. It was 
in reply to my letter, announcing that all hope of efcape or refcue 
was over, and that ' a vaft and wandering grave was theirs,' that 
in November he wrote to me the following. It is an interefting 
letter, too, in this, that it mentions what may not be known on the 



H 



other fide of the Atlantic, that he had had fome tranfient diplomatic 
vifions. 



36 Onjlow Square, B romp ton, 
%th November. 

My Dear Reed : 

I receive your melancholy letter this morning. It gives me an 
opportunity of writing about a fubject on which, of courfe, I felt very 
ftrongly for you, and for your poor brother's family. I have kept 
back writing, knowing the powerlefihefs of conlolation, and having, I 
don't know what vague hopes that your brother and Mifs Bronfon 
might have been fpared. That ghallly llruggle over, who would pity 
any man that departs ? It is the furvivors one commiferates, of fuch 
a good, pious, tender-hearted man as he feemed whom God Almighty 
has juft called back to Himfelf. He feemed to me to have all the 
fweet domeftic virtues which make the pang of parting only the more 
cruel to thole who are left behind : but that lols, what a gain to him ! 
A juil man fummoned by God, for what purpofe can he go but to 
meet the Divine Love and Goodnefs ? I never think about deploring 
fuch ; and as you and I fend for our children, meaning them only 
love and kindnefs, how much more Pater Noller ? So we fay and 
vveep the beloved ones whom we lose all the fame v>^ith the natural 
felfifh forrow — as you, I dare fay, will have a heavy heart when your 
daughter marries and leaves you. Tou will lole her, though her new 
home is ever fo happy. I remember quite well my vifit to your 
brother : the pictures in his room, which made me fee which way 
his thoughts lay ; his fweet, gentle, melancholy, pious manner. That 



15 

day I law them here in Dover Street, I don't know whether I told 
them, but I felt at the time that to hear their very accents affected 
me fomehow ; they were juft enough American to be national ; and 
where fhall I ever hear voices in the world that have fpoken more 
kindly to me ? It was like being in your grave, calm, kind, old 
Philadelphia over again, and behold ! now they are to be heard no 
more ! 

I only faw your brother once in London. When he firft called 
I was abroad ill, and went to fee him immediately I got your letter 
which he brought, and kept back, I think. We talked about the 
tour which he had been making ; and about churches in this country 
which I knew intereiled him, and Canterbury efpecially, where he had 
been at the opening of a miffionary college. He was going to Scotland, 
I think, and to leave London inllantly, for he and Mifs B. refufed 
hofpitality, etc. ; and we talked about the Memoirs of Hefter Reed, 
which I had found, I didn't know how, on my ftudy table ; and about 
the people whom he had met at Lord Mahon's ; and I believe I faid 
I fhould like to be going with him in the Arftic, and we parted 
with a great deal of kindnefs, pleafe God, and friendly talk of a future 
meeting. May it happen one day, for I feel fure he was a jull man. 
I wanted to get a copy of Efmond to feiid by him, (the firil edition, 
which is the good one,) but I did not know where to light on one 
having none myfelf; and a month fmce bought a couple of copies 
at a circulating library for "]$. 6d. a-piece. 

I am to day juil out of bed with the dozenth fevere fit of fpafms 
which I have had this year. My book would have been written but 
for them, and the leftures begun, with which I hope to make a 
few thoufand more dollars for thofe young ladies. But who knows 



i6 

whether I (hall be well enough to deliver them, or what is in {lore 
for next year ? The fecretaryfhip of our legation at Waihington was 
vacant the other day, and I inftantly alked for it ; but in the very 
kindeft letter Lord Clarendon fhowed how the petition was impoffible, 
Firll, the place was given away ; next, it would not be fair to appoint 
out of the fervice. But the firll was an excellent reafon, not a doubt 
of it. So, if ever I come, as I hope and trull to do this time next 
year, it mull be at my own cofl, and not the Queen's. 

Good bye, my dear Reed, and believe that I have the utmofl 
fympathy in your misfortune, and am, moll fincerely yours, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

The copy of 'Efmond' was for my wife, who had expreffed 
her liking for it beyond all his works. It came the next year thus 
infcribed : 

And is now among the moil cherilhed volumes in our library. 

In the winter of 1855 Mr. Thackeray made his fecond and lall 
vifit to this country, and gave us the firll fruits of his new leftur- 
ing experiment — ' The Georges.' I met him in New York and 



17 

heard his * George IV.' — to my mind the leaft agreeable of the 
courfe — delivered before a literary fociety in Brooklyn. He thence 
came to Philadelphia, and renewed his old intimacies and afTocia- 
tions. His friends were glad to fee him, and he them. The 
impreffion we all had was that two years had oldened him more than 
they fhould have done ; but there was no change in other refpefts. 
* The Georges' were, if poffible, a greater succefs than * The Humour- 
iils,' though I confefs I had, and have, a lurking preference for the 
genial communion with Steele and Fielding, (his great favourites,) and 
Swift and Sterne, (his averfions, ) to the dilleftion of the tainted 
remains of the Hanoverian Kings. But there was in one of thefe 
leftures a paffage familiar to every liflener and every reader, which I 
reproduce here, not merely from an afTociation prefently to be referred 
to, but becaufe, it feems to me, that in tranfcribing it, I have the dead 
again before me, and hear a fweet voice in the very printed words : 

" What preacher need moralize on this ftory ; what words fave 
the fimplell are requifite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The 
thought of fuch a mifery fmites me down in fubmiffion before the 
Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch Supreme over empires and 
republics, the infcrutable Difpofer of life, death, happinefs, viftory. 
O ! brothers ! fpeaking the fame dear mother tongue — O ! comrades ! 
enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together, as we Hand 
by this royal corpfe, and call a truce to battle ! Low he lies to whom 
the proudell ufed to kneel once, and who was call lower than the 
pooreft ; dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his 
throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with his children in revolt ; the 
darling of his old age killed before him untimely ; our Lear hangs 
over her breathlefs lips and cries : 'Cordelia, Cordelia, flay a little !' 



i8 



• Vex not his gholl ! — O let him pafs. — He hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer !' 

Hufh ! llrife and quarrel, over the folemn grave ! Sound, trum- 
pets, a mournful march ! Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his 
pride, his grief, his awful tragedy ! " 

Was it this, or was it the other paffage about the princefs Amelia, 
and the old King praying for returning reafon, which Thackeray 
referred to in the following note, written to me from Baltimore in 
anfwer to one fending an adverfe criticilm in a fmall newfpaper in 
Philadelphia ? 

Baltimore, Jan. 16, 1856. 
My Dear Reed: 

Your letter of the 9th, with one from Bollon of the 8th, was given 
to me lall night when I came home. In what poHible fnow-drift 
have they been lying torpid ? One hundred thanks for your goodnefs 
in the lefture, and all other matters ; and if I can find the face to 
read thofe printed leftures over again, I'll remember your good advice. 
That fplendid crowd on the lall lefture night, I knew, would make 
our critical friend angry. I have not feen the laft article, of courfe, and 
don't intend to look for it. And as I was reading the George III. 
lefture here on Monday night, could not help afking myfelf, " What 
can the man mean by faying that I am uncharitable, unkindly, that 
I fneer at virtue," and fo forth ? My own confcience being pretty 
clear I can receive the Bulletin's difpleafure with calmnefs — remem- 
bering how I ufed to lay about me in my own youthful days, and 
how I generally took a good, tall mark to hit at. 



19 

Wicked weather, and an opera company which performed on 
the two firll lecture nights here, made the audiences rather thin ; 
but they fetched up at the third ledure, and to-night is the laft ; after 
which I go to Richmond — then to go farther fouth, from Charlefton 
to Havannah and New Orleans ; perhaps to hark back and try weft- 
ward, where I know there is a great crop of dollars to be reaped. 
But to be inow-bound in my infirm condition ! I might never get 
out of the fnow alive. 

I go to Wafhington to-morrow for a night. I was there and dined 
with Crampton on Saturday. He was in good force and fpirits, and 
I faw no figns of packing up, or portmanteaux in the hall. 

I fend my very beft regards to Mrs. Reed and your fifter-in-law, 
and Lewis and his kind folks, and to Mac's whiiky punch, which gave 
me no headache. I'm very forry it treated you fo unkindly. 

Always yours, dear Reed, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

The allufion in this letter to the printed leftures recalls a little 
incident which was very illuftrative of his generous temper, and is 
not unlike ' the pill-box with the guineas,' which I have feen lately 
in lome literary notices. It was this : On his return to Phila- 
delphia, in the fpring of 1856, from the South and Weft, a number 
of his friends — I, as much as any one — urged him, unwifely as it 
turned out, to repeat his ledlures on the ' Humourifts.' He was 
very loath to do it, but finally yielded, being, I doubt not, Ibmewhat 
influenced by the pecuniary inducements accidentally held out to him. 
A young bookfeller of this city offered him a round fum, not very 
large, but, under the circumflances, quite liberal, for the courfe, which 



20 



he accepted. The experiment was a failure. It was late in the 
feafon, with long days and fhortening nights, and the courfe was a ilale 
one, and the ledlures had been printed, and the audiences were thin, 
and the bargain was difailrous, not to him, but to the young gentle- 
man who had ventured it. We were all difappointed and mortified ; 
but Thackeray took it good humouredly — the only thing that feemed 
to diilurb him being his fympathy with the man of bufinei's. " I don't 
mind the empty benches, but I cannot bear to fee that fad, pale-faced 
young man as I come out, who is lofing money on my account." 
This he ufed to fay at my houie, when he came home to a ,frugal 
and not very cheerful fupper after the leftures. Still, the bargain had 
been fairly made, and was honourably complied with, and the money 
was paid and remitted, through my agency, to him at New York. I 
received no acknowledgment of the remittance, and recolledl well 
that I felt not a little annoyed at this; the more fo when, on picking 
up a newfpaper, I learned that Thackeray had failed for home. The 
day after he had gone, when there could be no refufal, I received 
from him a certificate of depofit on his New York bankers for an 
amount quite fufficient to make up any lofs incurred, as he thought 
in his behalf. I give the accompanying note, merely fuppreffing 
the name of the gentleman in queilion. There are fome little 
things in this note — 'its blanks and dalhes — to which a fac-fimile alone 
would do juilice. 



2\th April. 
My Dear Reed: 

When you get this .... Remember-ember me to ki-ki-kind 
friends, ...» a fudden refolutian , , . to-mor-row in 



21 

the Baltic ! — . . . Good-bye, my dear, kind friend, and all 
kind friends in Philadelphia. I didn't think of going away when 
I left home this morning — but it's the befl way, 

I think it right to fend back twenty-five per cent, to poor H . 

Will you kindly give him the enclofed ; and depend upon it I ftiall 
go and fee Mrs. Boott, '(my wife's aged grandmother, then refiding 
in England,)' when I get to London, and tell her all about you. My 
heart is uncommonly heavy ; and I am yours, gratefully and affec- 
tionately, 

W. M. T. 

And thus, with an aft and words of kindnefs, he left America, never 
to return ! 

It was during this vifit to the United States that, as he told me, 
the idea of his American novel, ' The Virginians,' was conceived ; 
and I have reafon to think that fome of the details in the ftory 
were due as well to Mr. Prefcott's * Croffed Swords' as to conver- 
fations with me at a time when my mind was full of hiilorical 
aflbciations and fuggellions, and when to think of my country's 
llory was matter of pride and pleafure. In the letter of November, 
1854, on my brother's death, Mr. Thackeray fpeaks of 'The 
Memoirs of Heiler Reed,' which he had found on his ftudy 
table. This was a little volume, privately printed a few years before, 
containing the biography of my paternal grandmother. Either De 
Berdt, a young Englifh girl, who had made the acquaintance of her 
American lover when, in colony times, he was a ftudent in the 
Temple. They married, came to this country ; he became a foldier 
of the Revolution, and fhe, fharing her hufband's feelings, and opinions. 



22 



and trials, died, Hill a young woman, in the middle of the war. As 
I have laid, Efther Reed was my father's mother. Mr. Thackeray 
feemed pleaied with the genuinenefs of the little book, and talked 
often of it. The names * Hetty' and ' Theodofia,' (the latter, I believe, 
in his family alfo, j which appear in * The Virginians,' are to be found 
in my homely narrative of Revolutionary times. One other luggeilion 
I trace in ' The Virginians.' I recolledl, in one of our rambles, telling 
him of a book which he did not feem to know — and I can hardly fay 
that it is to my credit that I did — ' The Memoirs of the Duke de 
Lauzun.' We fpoke of the difpute as to its genuinenefs, (^its authen- 
ticity as a record of the intrigues of a courtier of Louis XV. there 
was no reafon to doubt,) and I called his attention to the fact, very 
creditable to my country-women of ancient days, that, while Lauzun's 
life, not only in France, where it was natural enough, but in England, 
was a continuity of atrocious licentioufnefs, with his viftims' names 
revealed, as only a Frenchman of that day was capable of doing, the 
moment he lands in America, accompanying Rochambeau's army to 
Rhode Ifland, the wicked fpirit feems rebuked by the purity and 
fimplicity of American women ; and though he mentions the names 
of feveral ladies whom he met, there is not a word of indecorum, or 
a whifpered thought of impurity. This idea the reader will find 
ilated in ' The Virginians' thus : 

" There lived, during the lail century, a certain French Duke and 
Marquis, who dillinguifhed himfelf in Europe and America likewife, and 
has obliged pollerity by leaving behind him a choice volume of 
memoirs, which the gentle reader is fpecially warned not to conlult. 
Having performed the part of Don Juan in his own country, in ours, 
and in other parts of Europe, he has kindly noted down the names 



23 

of many court beauties who fell viftims to his powers of fafcination ; 
and very pleafing, no doubt, it muft be for the grandfons and defcen- 
dants of the fafhionable perfons amongll whom our brilliant nobleman 
moved, to find the names of their anceftrefles adorning M. le Due's 
fprightly pages, and their frailties re<:orded by the candid writer who 
caufed them. In the courfe of the peregrinations of this nobleman, 
he vifited North America, and, as had been his cullom in Europe, 
proceeded ftraightway to fall in love. And curious it is to contrail 
the elegant refinements of European fociety, where, according to 
Monseigneur, he had but to lay feige to a woman in order to vanquilh 
her, with the fimple lives and habits of the colonial folks, amongll 
whom this European enflaver of hearts did not, it appears, make a 
fingle conquefl. Had he done fo, he would as certainly have narrated 
his viftories in Pennfylvania and New England, as he defcribed his 
fucceffes in this and his own country. Travellers in America have 
cried quite loudly enough againll the rudenefs and barbarifm of tranf- 
atlantic manners ; let the prefent writer give the humble teflimony 
of his experience, that the converfation of American gentlemen is 
generally modeft, and, to the beft of his belief, the lives of the 
women pure." 

* The Virginians' appeared in monthly numbers whilft I was 
abfent on my miflion to China in 1858, and there I read it. Iiv 
the tone of, I hope, pardonable egotifm in which I have thus far 
Written, I tranfcribe an entry in the little diary I kept in the Eall 
for the amufement of my wife and family at home. 

'•■Friday, July 23. — Shanghae. — Read to-day No. VII. of * The 
Virginians.' I ftill like it, though I fear my friend Lord Chefterfield 
will fare badly.- I don't care what is faid about old Q. or any of 



24 

the Selwyn party. In one of his letters (this I have loft or miflaid, 
or fome felonious autograph hunter has purloined it) to me long ago, 
Thackeray, when he was projecting ♦ The Virginians,' told me he 
ihould ufe ' Esther DeBerdt,' and now I fee his heroines are Hetty 
and Theodofia, and from the fame rank of life — almoft the only pure 
one then — to which my 'Hetty' belonged. But what beautiful, heart- 
ftirring things one meets in his books. I can't help copying one: 
* Can'ft thou, O ! friendly reader, count upon the fidelity of an artlefs 
or tender heart or two, and reckon among the bleffings which Heaven 
hath beftowed on thee, the love of faithful women ? Purify thy 
own heart, and try to make it worthy theirs. On thy knees — on thy 
knees — give thanks for the bleffings awarded thee ! All the prizes of 
life are nothing compared with that one. All the rewards of ambition, 
pleafure, wealth — only vanity and difappointment, grafped at greedily 
and fought for fiercely— and over and over again found worthlefs by the 
weary winners. But love feems to furvive life, and to reach beyond it. 
I think we take it with us paft the grave. Do we not ftill give it to 
thofe who have left us ? May we not hope that they feel it for us, 
and that we ftiall leave it here in one or two fond bofoms when we 
alfo are gone.' You will think I have very little to do, or record, to 
have time to make fo long extrafts ; but I could not help it, for the 
magic words touched me." 

On my appointment to China, Thackeray was among the firll 
to congratulate me, at the fame time begging me — as he feemed to 
take for granted that my route to the Eaft would be what, by an 
odd mifnomer, is called the 'overland' — to ftop with him in London. 
I went, however, by the Cape of Good Hope ; and it was not till 
my return, in the fpring of 1859, that we met again. From Malta, 



25 

or fome point on the Continent, I wrote to afk him, having due regard 
to economy, my party being numerous, and to the odour of official 
ftation which ftill hung round me, to get me fuitable lodgings in 
London, and the following perfeftly charafteriftic note was the anfwer: 

Maurigy's Hotel, i Regent Street, Waterloo Place, 
April z, 1859. 

My Dear Reed: 

This is the bell place for you, I think. Two Bilhops already 
in the houfe. Country gentlefolks and American envoys efpecially 
affeft it. Mr. Maurigy fays you may come for a day at the rate of 
ten guineas a week, with rooms very clean and nice, which I have 
juil gone over, and go away at the day's end, if you difapprove. 

The enclofed note is about the Athenasum, where you may like 
to look in. I wrote to Lord Stanhope, who is on the committee, 
to put you up. 

I won't bore you by aflcing you to dinner till we fee how matters 
are, as of courfe you will confort with bigger wigs than yours, always, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

No 'bigger wigs* came between us. During my fortnight in 
London — for I was haftening home after two years abfence — we law 
him nearly every day. He came regularly to our quarters, went 
with me to the Athenasum — that fpot of brilliant aflbciation — where 
he pointed out the eminent men of whom I had heard and read ; and 
then he would go to his working table in the Club Library and write 
for the ' Cornhill,' to which he faid he had fold himfelf to flavery 



26 

for two years. He would carry my ron, a young man juft of age, off 
with him to fee the London world in odd * haunts.' I dined with him 
twice — once at his modeft h6ufe. No. 36 Onflow Square, where 
we had the great pleafure of feeing his daughters, and once at Green- 
wich, at a bachelor's dinner, where I made the acquaintance, fince 
ripened into in,timacy, of another friend, who will, I am fure, excufe 
this dillant allufion to him.. We looked out on the Park and the 
river, where the Great Eaflern was lying before her firft voyage, 
and talked of America and American affociations, and of the chance 
of his coming again when the magazine flavery was at an end^ and 
our lafl dinner was over. I left London on the afternoon of the 
30th of April, 1859. ^^' ^^^ Mifs Thackeray were at the Eufton 
Square ftation to fay farewell. He took my fon afide and, to his 
infinite confufion, handed him a little cadeau, which I hope he will 
always cherifh with pride for the fake of the giver. " We parted 
with a great deal of kindnefs, pleafe God, and friendly talk of a future 
meeting. May it happen one day, for I feel fure he was a juft. man." 

My pious duty is nearly done. On my return to America our 
correfpondence, naturally enough, languiflied; each was much occu- 
pied ; he with drudgery which was exhaufting and engroffing. I 
often received kind meffages, and fometimes apologies. After the 
Civil War began, no letter paffed between us. I had not the heart to 
write, and I do not believe that he had ; for I reject with emphafis the 
idea that his gentle nature could feel aught but horror at this war 
of brethren — " brothers fpeaking the fame dear mother tongue." 
More than any Englifliman of letters I have ever known, he was 
free from that fentimental difeafe of * Abolitionifm.' His American 
novel, and his piftures of life in ancient days at Castlewood, on the 



.27 

Potomac, fhow this abundantly. His eltimate of Mrs. Stowe's evil- 
omened fiction, in one of the letters I have given, fhows it. He had 
been in the South, and met Southern ladies and gentlemen, the highell 
types of American civilization. This I may fay now in their hour 
of fufFering and poffible difaller. He had vifited Southern homes, 
which the bloody hand of wanton outrage has fince defecrated, and 
Ihared Southern hofpitality, and no word, that I am aware of, ever 
fell from his lips, or his pen, which fhowed fympathy or approval 
of the crufade which has tumbled the American Union in bloody 
ruin. 

As recently as February, 1862, in one of his fugitive eflays, he 
incidentally referred to an incident of our days of forrow, and thus 
embalmed his afFeftionate regard for a diilant friend on whom the 
hand of arbitrary power was, or was fuppofed to be, laid. I have 
reafon to believe the reference was to a gentleman, long a refident 
of Savannah. 

" I went to the play one night, and proteft I hardly know what 
was the entertainment which paffed before my eyes. In the next Hall 

was an American gentleman who knew me And the 

Chriilmas piece which the adtors were playing proceeded like a piece 
in a dream. To make the grand comic performance doubly comic, 
my neighbour prefently informed me how one of the beft friends I 
had in America — the moll hofpitable, kindly, amiable of men, from 
whom I had twice received the warmeil welcome and the moil 
delightful hofpitality — was a prifoner in Fort Warren, on charges 
by which his life might be rifked. I think it was the moll difmal 
Chriilmas piece which thefe eyes ever looked on." 

And ib I have every reafon to believe it was throughout. 



28 



One other memorandum I did receive from my friend. In the 
fummer of 1863, an Anglo-Indian officer brought me the following 
note, written on one of the little book flips ufed in the Reading 
Room of the Britifli Mufeum. 



Permission to use the Reading Room will be withdrawn from any person who shall write or 
make marks on any part of a printed book or manuscript belonging to the Museum. 



Press Mark. 



Heading and Title of the Work wanted. 



Size. 



Place. 



Date. 



H(ru/u oU. fUtuJ, 






^^^MU 



(Date) 



li^^l^Lcuic^ ^ ^ (Signature). 



(Number of the Reader's Seat). 

Please to restore each volume of the Catalogue to its place, as soon as done with. 



fW.. V. B.Rw^ PliUaMjJU<^ 



My little Memorial is finiflied. I have written it in a frame of 
mind diilrafted by all that, in these laft few days, has been going on 

around me, with two objects : one to embalm, I truil not unpleafantly 
to any one, the memories I happen to have of a friend who was dear 
to me ; the other, to try, by a defperate intelleflual effort, to throw 
afide, if but for a moment, (and the date will fliow why I feel fo,) 
the burthen of confcioufnefs that bloody deeds are now doing which 
will bring new forrow into many a home, and whofe fruits may 



29 

be the downfall of the little that is left of the conftitutional liberties 
of my country. 



W. B. R. 



Chestnut Hill, near Philadelphia, ) 
May 14, 1864. j 



P. S. — I have read everything I could put my hands on that has 
appeared in England and this country on Thackeray's death. The 
notice w^hich moil imprelTed me vv^as the following, which I am 
tempted to reprint. It may be that the collocation in it, with Thack- 
eray's, of another name — that of an eminent man, with whom I was 
clofely aflbciated at a very happy period of my life, I mean Lord 
Elgin — gives it this interell for me. He, too, died in the fatal 1863. 

" Thackeray. Juft now the mails are going out. A hundred 
fplendid fteam Ihips are fpeeding fwiftly over every fea, eaft, weft, and 
north, from the omphales called London, to carry the fortnight's 
inrtalment of Britifh hiftory and Britifti thought into every land where 
the Englifli language is fpoken. But the faddeft news they carry — 
fadder news than they have carried for many a month — is the 
announcement of the death of William Thackeray. It will come 
firft to New York, where they loved him as we did. And the 
flaneurs of the Broadway, and even the bufy men in Wall Street, 
will ftay their politics and remember him. They will fay, * Poor 
Thackeray is dead.' Though they may refufe to hear the truth — 
though they choofe to infult us beyond endurance at ftated times — let 
us keep one thing in mind : the flags in New York were hung half- 
maft high when Havelock died. Let us remember that. And fo 
the news will travel fouthward. Some lean, lithe, deer-eyed 
lad will fneak, run fwiftly, paufe to liften, and then hold fteadily 
forward acrofs the defolate war-wafted fpace, between the Federal 
lines and the fmouldering watchfires of the Confederates, carrying 
the news brought by the laft mail from Europe, and will come 



30 



to a knot of calm, clear-eyed, lean-faced Confederate officers (oh ! that 
fuch men fhould be wafted in fuch a quarrel, for the fin was not 
theirs after all); and one of thefe men will run his eye over the 
telegrams, and will fay to the others, ' Poor Thackeray is dead.' 
And the news will go from picket to picket, along the limeftone 
ridges which hang above the once happy valleys of Virginia, and 
will pafs fouth, until JefFerfon Davis — the man fo like Stratford de 
Redcliffe — the man of the penetrating eyes and of the thin, clofe-fet 
lips — the man with the weight of an empire on his fhoulders — ^will 
look up from his papers and fay, with heartfelt forrow • The author 
of The Virginians is dead.' High upon the hill-fide at Simla there will 
ftand foon a group of Englifti, Scotch, and Irilh gentlemen, looking 
over the great plain below, and remarking to one another how much 
the profpedl had changed lately, and how the grey-brown jungle has 
been flowly fupplanted by the brilliant emerald green of the cotton 
plant, and by a thoufand threads of filver water from the irrigation 
trenches. They will be hoping that Lawrence will fucceed poor 
Lord Elgin, and that he will not be facrificed in that accurfed 
Calcutta ; they will be wondering how it fares with Crawley. Then 
a dawk will toil up the hill-fide with the mail ; and in a few minutes 
they will be faying, * Lawrence is appointed ; Crawley is acquitted, 
but poor Thackeray is dead.' The pilot, when he comes out in his 
leaping whaleboat, and boards the mail fteamer as fhe lies-to off the 
headlands which form the entrance gates to our new Southern Em- 
pire, will alk the news of the captain; and he will be told, 'Lord Elgin 
and Mr. Thackeray are dead.' That evening they will know it 
in Melbourne, and it will be announced at all the theatres ; the 
people, dawdling in the hot ftreets half the night through, waiting 
for the breaking up of the weather, will tell it to one another and 
talk of him. The fentence which we have repeated fo often that it 
has loft half its meaning, will have meaning to them. 'William 
Thackeray is dead!' So the news will fly through the ieventy million 
ibuls who fpeak the Englifh language. And he will lie cold and deaf 
in his grave, unconlcious, after all his work, of his greatefl triumph; 
unconfcious that the great fo-called Anglo-Saxon race little knew how 
well they loved him till they loft him. 'Vanitas vanitatum ! Let 
us fhut up the box and the puppets, for the play is played out.' " 
H. K. — Macmillan. 



31 

As thefe fheets are paffing through the prefs, a friend has placed 
in my hands the following Philadelphia note, written in 1853. I 
have his permiffion to print it : 

Girard Houfe, Jan. 23, 1853. 
My Dear Mr. Biddle, 

This note is written with your gold pen, which fuits me to a 
nicety, and which I fhall value always as a token of the goodwill 
and friendlinefs of the kind giver. I believe I have never written for 
popularity, but God forbid I fhould be indifferent to fuch marks of 
efteem and confidence as now and then fall to my ftiare, when fcholars 
and good men are pleafed with my works. I am thankful to have 
fhaken your kind hand, and to carry away your good opinion, Pleafe 
God, the gold pen fhall tell no lies while it lives with me. As for 
the fplendid cafe, I fhall put it into my childrens' mufeum. I know 
how pleafed and proud they will be at any fuch tokens of friendfhip 
fhown to their father. 

Believe me always, my dear sir, your faithful and obliged 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

To Clement C. Biddle, Esq., 
Spruce St., n. 13th. 



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